


Revelation

by runsinthefamily



Category: Supernatural
Genre: angel pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 00:58:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runsinthefamily/pseuds/runsinthefamily





	Revelation

There is no torture in Heaven.

Which is why they stake him out on the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat, thrust into a hastily chosen vessel and then nailed to the frozen rock with blessed iron spikes, his Grace bound into the mortal flesh with fire and brass, Enochian brands on his forehead and chest and belly. 

Naked, he hangs spreadeagled from the iron, aware in a distant fashion that his vessel is in a great deal of pain. The brands that shackle him to it also prevent him from healing it, or dampening the effects of hunger and cold and dehydration. He tilts his head back as they finish driving the spikes in, great ringing blows that echo off the mountainsides. The stars shine overhead, bright points of fire in the endless firmament. 

_You will remain until you repent your act of defiance._ Raphael sounds both compassionate and toweringly, burningly furious. _You are a servant of Heaven. Remember it._

They leave him, alone and small and trapped, his Grace smothered, his voice nothing more than a scrape of breath over strained vocal cords.

The pain is bothersome. It is not possible for a vessel to die by mortal means while an angel inhabits it, but his extremities blacken and curl with frostbite, and the bones of his wrists and ankles grind against the spikes and the brands burn with an everlasting fire, dipped as they had been in consecrated oil. His lips chap and split. During the days, the sun burns his skin. The wind is a torment of cold and flying ice particles.

Castiel waits. This is meant to correct him, to show him his errors and purge his sin and set him once again on the path of righteousness. He watches his heart and waits for it to change.

On the third day Raphael visits him, casting his gaze upon Castiel’s small and twisted body, the trails of blood. Castiel, warmed somewhat by his presence, regains enough strength to shiver.

 _Are you penitent?_ the archangel asks, and Castiel has to answer, schooling his frozen lips and swollen tongue.

He tells the truth. “N-no.” 

Raphael’s face darkens. _Then stay, and contemplate again._

It becomes difficult to determine the passage of time accurately. His senses are those of his vessel, his consciousness is locked inside the slowly freezing marvel of the human brain. He is cut off even from the angelic chorus, something that even Anna, in her completely mortal flesh, still heard.

Anna comes to visit, he thinks. Once, at least. She touches his face, he sees tears on her cheeks. She puts her forehead to his and says something, but he can’t hear her over the howl of the wind, the ringing in his ears. He watches her lips shape a word, tries to comprehend.

But she is gone.

Raphael comes again, and Castiel again tells him the truth. He cannot see his wrong. He knows that he has broken the rules, that he has defied his superiors, but has he done wrong? He does not believe it.

“No,” he tells Raphael, or breathes it, or intends it. He is not in control of his vessel’s damaged throat or mouth anymore. 

_Do you want to hang here forever?_ Raphael asks, his rage an incandescent, painful thing.

“No,” he says again. He does not want to. 

_Let me give you another argument to meditate upon,_ says Raphael, draws his blade, and slashes Castiel’s upper left thigh open.

Blood and Grace pour from the wound. Castiel writhes, as much as he is able to, attempts to scream and produces only hoarse, broken wheezes.

 _Repent,_ says Raphael. _When I again return, it will be the last time I make this offer._

Castiel watches the stars wheel overhead, feels his Grace leaking out. Its light is ephemerally beautiful against the snow. He cannot decide if it is more frightening to think that he could die here, truly cease to exist, or to think that he _can’t_ , that instead Raphael will make good on his threat and leave him hanging here until Armageddon and beyond, until the Earth is a cinder and the sun swallows it.

Yet he is not penitent. Even in the face of annihilation. 

What had Anna said? Why had she spoken with her human voice?

So that none else could hear.

He closes his eyes, summons her face in his mind’s eye, sees her lips move again. 

_“Lie.”_

When Raphael comes again, for the last time, Castiel tips his face up and begs mercy. Admits fault. Repents.

And thinks to himself, as the spikes come free and the brands fade and he spirals out of the poorly-fitting flesh, that it does not have to be a lie. That he will make it true, in word and deed if not in thought, that the twist of shame he feels deep inside is for what he’s done, and not what he will do.


End file.
